May you know you are loved
by Jessica12
Summary: RJ - Chap 3 -"How can you live with yourself"- What if Jimmy didn't let Jess stay in "Here comes the son"? Jess POV on leaving and the phone call in "Those are strings.."
1. Default Chapter

Title: May you know you are loved-

**_"There is no returning"_**

Author: Jessica

Email: j_rothen@yahoo.se 

Distribution: Wherever...just let me know where 

Spoilers: Season 2, Season 3

Rating: PG

Category: Romance, AU, angst, V

Feedback: YES please....j_rothen@yahoo.se

Pairing: Rory/Jess

Disclaimer:I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS. 

Summary: What if the fight in "Keg!Max!" turned out a different way? What if

Jess left town in a different way?

AUTHORS NOTE: English is not my first language so spelling/ grammar

mistakes may occur.

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He knew what he had to do.

He just couldn't move.

The moon still shone strong on the dark sky outside the window but

he knew that it was only a matter of time.

He had never feared the daybreak as he did now.

The world seemed so calm now, in between morning and night.

She was still sleeping.

The only sound that pierced the silence of the room was her breathing,

ebb and flow.

Her hand still rested on his chest and she was sleeping with her

lovely face turned towards him.

He wanted so badly to touch her again and drown in the sweet soft

sea of her embrace.

But he was afraid.

So he just lay there, trying to work up the courage to move away from

her and rise from the bed.

The bags where all packed so there were nothing left to hold him back.

Except her.

When he came to town that day so many months ago he had never in

his wildest dreams expect to fall in love.

But he had.

Jess Mariano had fallen and fallen hard.

There were people back in New York that would laugh at the fact that

the mighty warrior had fallen.

But he had.

Now as he lay there, with his arms wrapped around her, he wanted 

nothing else than hold on to that feeling.

But he couldn't do that.

He knew that now.

It wasn't like he had a choice.

But then again he was the one who put himself in that situation,

so the fault was his.

His hand was not forced.

He could have prevented it.

But pride took the better of him

People might say that he was willing to throw everything away

just to stand strong.

But he knew better.

He had no choice in the matter.

He could stay.

He could do what Luke asked him to do and what he once promised.

But that would just be a waste of time.

It wasn't like he could shut his eyes for the truth no longer.

He didn't belong there.

He had tried so hard to be what they wanted him to be.

But the people of Stars Hollow were hard to please.

They were used to "normal" people.

People that walked the straight line.

And he was nothing like that.

From the moment he stepped fit in that town he had felt like a freak.

He was labeled as "trouble" even before he came to town.

But then again he didn't do anything to prove them wrong.

He was everything that they feared and he liked it that way because

it gave him a sense of belonging, of actually being someone.

So when he came to town he fell right back to his usual role, the one 

he was so use to playing back home in New York.

But then he met Rory Gilmore.

To say that it was love at first sight might be lying but it was close.

When he entered her room that evening many months ago he did feel

something.

A jolt or something.

But he chose to ignore it as he often did when it came to feelings.

Anger was the closest and most familiar feeling in his book.

But she changed something inside of him.

Days grew into months and their encounters became friendlier

and they moved from friends to something in between.

And somewhere along the way Jess Mariano fell in love.

He couldn't say when he actually did fell in love with her because

it happened so slowly.

He tried to fight it at first and he blamed his need to see her

on everything else than the obvious.

But when she was torn from his life that horrible night so many

months ago he finally broke down and admitted to himself what

his heart already knew.

That night proved what everyone was already thinking, that he was trouble.

He never thought she might actually feel the same as he did.

But when she came to him that day in New York he saw something in

her eyes that he had only dreamed about.

So he returned to the town where everyone hated him.

He was willing to fight for her.

He, who hadn't fought for a thing in his life, was willing to fight

for her.

So when she kissed him under the tree that sunny day he dared to

believe that everything might actually turn out right in the end.

But how wrong he was.

He wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

She wanted to shove it aside and forget about it.

That hurt more than anything else.

She stayed away for months.

He waited, like a silly schoolboy with a crush, for any sign from her.

A sign that might tell him that it was actually were something left

for him to hope for.

But days became months and she remained silence.

Time made him angry and bitter.

He met Shane and he let himself drown in her.

She was everything that Rory wasn't.

But he chose to ignore that.

As he chose to ignore his aching heart.

So the day came when Rory Gilmore returned to Stars Hollow.

He hoped and prayed that she might actually come to him.

That her silence over the months that had passed was just a mistake.

But then reality hit.

He stood there, in the shadow of the tree, and watched as she hugged

and kissed Dean.

And his heart shattered into millions of tiny pieces.

But instead of nursing his broken heart he went on the warpath.

He declared war.

He wanted her to feel the pain that ripped through his body every time

she ignored him, every time she smiled at her boyfriend.

So he molded the walls around his heart in ice and he went out of

his way to let her know that she meant nothing to him.

But when they finally faced each other he almost crumbled.

He wanted answers to questions that been haunting him for months.

And for a brief moment he opened his heart to her and showed her 

the heart that still ached for her.

But she turned away from him.

She chose to walk the other way.

So he did the same.

He walked away and as days passed he tried to stay away from her.

But Rory Gilmore was something of a drug to him.

There was something about her that made him want to see her every day.

So he acted like the fool he was.

And he fell over and over again.

He let her walk all over him and some part of him enjoyed the pain

because that meant that she actually cared at least a little about him.

When the night of the dance came he was willing to do battle.

He had sat there for hours watching her, in her red dress, until

his head hurt and his body screamed for rest.

But he couldn't bear to leave.

He had an excuse to watch her and he took it.

When Dean put his arms around her and danced with her he wanted

nothing but race out on to the floor and break them apart.

But he couldn't do that.

She had made that clear a long time ago.

So he sat there and watched until she finally crumbled before his eyes.

He wasn't prepared that it might actually happen that night and in

that way.

But it did.

This time it wasn't Jess Mariano that twisted the knife in her

heart.

This time it was Dean.

But still the pain of the thrust hurt as much in his heart.

He sat there and watched as she came undone on the dance floor.

When he found her on the bridge that night he didn't know what to 

say at first.

She was in pain and he hated it.

He tried to convince his silly heart that everything Dean had said

was lies.

It was a way of protection from the pain that so easily could once

again shatter his weak defensives.

But this time it was the truth.

The rest is history.

As he lay there with her in his arms he couldn't help remember the

long way he had walked to come to the place that he now was.

And now he was ready to give everything up.

He wished that there were some way that he could keep her.

But he knew that he had to let her go one-day or another.

He knew that she was meant for something other then him.

She had this way about her that whispered that her future healed

great things.

Or at least that was what he believed.

And he couldn't hold her back from that.

So he was ready to walk away from her and set her free.

It wasn't like he ran away.

He was out of options.

He moved slowly away from the warmth of her body and rose.

He dressed in the moonlight.

The bags were all packed and stood by the door.

She hadn't seen them the night before.

That evening had started all wrong.

He had meant to say goodbye to her that night.

But it had ended with them fighting and she running away from him.

He had caught up with her somewhere in between her house and Luke's.

Forgiveness had been pleaded for and given.

It had started to rain but as he took her hand he didn't care about

anything else than her.

They walked to Luke's and walked upstairs.

Luke was away during the weekend with Nicole in New York.

They sat down on the couch and listened to the rain beating against

the windows of that small apartment.

He clung to her hand, desperate of letting.

He didn't know who moved first.

All he could remember was their lips meeting.

She tasted of coffee.

Small raindrops glimmered like millions of tiny diamonds on her skin.

As they parted he saw something in her eyes that wasn't there before.

But he was scared of pushing her away so he moved slowly.

He had been down that road many times before but never like that 

and never with her.

So his hands trembled a little as he moved closer to her.

She seemed so fragile, like she would shatter if he touched her.

But she reassured him and took his hand.

He undressed her in the moonlight and watched as her skin shone like silver.

Her hands trembled and her eyes were wide as she dared to move closer 

to him and explore his boyish body.

As her hand met the sensitive skin on his chest something inside of

him sang.

Her touch was light as a feather but started fires inside of him

that he didn't know how to tame.

As he took her hand and lead her towards the bed fear lived in her eyes

so he let go.

He knew that he couldn't give her promises for the future.

He knew that she would surely hate him in the morning but for that

single night he might have the opportunity to show her how much

he loved her.

To speak to her in ways words can't describe.

She moved slowly towards him, with her eyes fixed on him.

Her eyes pleaded to him and he knew what they were saying.

To be gentle with her.

To let him know how fragile she was.

So he did what came natural to him.

He reached out his hand.

No words could bridge the gap between them better than that.

She took it.

He laid her down on the bed and as their lips met he knew there were

no turning back.

With a sigh she opened up to him and gave him a piece of paradise.

As he entered her that night and as he took her towards the brink and

back again he knew that he had found his home.

As he stood there, hours later, with her scent still lingering on him

a piece of him hated himself.

He was everything they said he was.

He was trouble and he didn't deserve her.

At least of not now.

But the other part of him cried.

He wanted to wake her and kiss her once again.

But then he might fall and he couldn't do that.

For once in his life was doing the right thing.

He was walking away.

He lingered by the bed along time, watching as her dreams took her away.

He wanted to brand every line of her face into his memory.

The way her hair shone in the moonlight.

The curve of her mouth.

Her lashes that rested on her pale cheek.

Her skin that seemed to be molded of pure silver.

But he knew eventually his memory of her would fade with time.

He prayed that maybe one day he wouldn't remember what it was like

to love her.

And then he might be okay.

But for now, Jess Mariano was dying.

His hands trembled as he moved towards the door and picked up the bags.

He hated to leave her like that. 

But he couldn't bear to say goodbye to her.

He had said his goodbyes.

He opened the door slowly and with one single glance back on the bed he

was gone.

And as the sun rose over Stars Hollow Jess Mariano walked out

of Rory Gilmore's life forever this time.

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	2. This is where she fell

This is where she fell 

by: Jessica

The lampposts outside her window flickered and died away as night moved into

early morning.

She had tossed and turned in bed until she finally gave up and rose.

A week had passed since he had walked away from her.

But it felt like only yesterday.

He had walked out of her life without even saying goodbye.

The silence hurt more than anything else.

She had searched for clues that might tell her why, but she found nothing.

So she drew the conclusion that he didn't want her.

As she lay alone at night she twisted and turned her memories of them together 

and she came up with a truth that satisfied her bleeding heart.

It had been just a game to him.

He had come into her life so determined to break her and steal her away from Dean.

He had never been in love with her.

She made him the bad guy in the story because it was easier than actually feeling the

pain of a broken heart.

She let her anger consume her for days.

She never let it show, so she suffered in silence.

She stayed away from all their familiar places for days afterwards and she refused to speak his name. She threw herself into the work of erasing him from her heart.

But as the days passed she knew that he would forever be branded into her heart.

So she settled with trying to live with her scares and she prayed to God to have mercy on her.

She had never been much of a believer but she prayed for release anyways.

It felt like she couldn't breathe without him.

But she never let on how she felt.

She moved slowly, trying not to feel her broken heart and the shame of giving herself totally to someone that didn't want her.

Her mother pleaded to her in every way possible to open up to someone.

But she couldn't.

So they settled with the silence that these days lay between them.

And they both prayed that time would eventually heal her heart.

He had been wrong from the start.

She had known this but she had fallen anyways.

He walked into her life at time when everything was perfect.

Her life was finally perfect and he ruined everything just by entering it.

She didn't know it then but she felt something moving as he walked into her room that night some months ago.

There was something about him that drew her closer.

His eyes whispered of pain that lay behind him and anger that threaten to consume him.

It had awakened her curiosity and her need to help.

As their meetings became friendlier she became more and more fascinated with him. He challenged her in ways that no one else had done before.

She woke every day hoping she might see him but when she did she was afraid.

She believed that he might see through her and see the heart that beat so fast whenever he was close. So she hid behind fancy words.

When he showed his interest in her by challenging Dean in everyway possible hope sprung alive inside of her.

And she hated herself for actually wanting to be more than friends.

She had no right to feel anything for the new guy in town. 

So she went into battle and tried to fight it.

But it was like trying to fight a coming storm.

Then the night came when everything came to an end.

She had come there to be his tutor, nothing else. At least that was what she told herself.

But that night turned out like neither of them had planned.

She had come there wanting to prove to herself that he meant nothing to her. 

That she didn't want anything else than friends. But she didn't expect that that night would change everything. 

She had gotten in that car willingly. That was something she tried to convince everyone of afterwards. But they didn't see it that way. All they could see was the wrecked car and the broken arm. She had been scared, that was something she would admit. But he had saved her.

He had sat with her until the ambulance had come. He had even held her hand while his face twisted and turned in pain. As the doors of the ambulance closed she knew that everything had come to an end. 

The next morning he was gone. 

The blame was his and he carried the burden alone.

He left Stars Hollow carrying the blame of her broken arm.

She had tried to convince them of the truth but they chose to be blind.

She told herself that she had to forget him and for a while she did.

She threw herself in the arms of Dean, her boyfriend,

and tried to forget about a boy named Jess.

But time did nothing to erase him from her heart and when the opportunity came to see him she took it.

She told herself that it was just a friend visiting another friend but being with him there in the New York City only left her wanting more.

When she arrived back home in Stars Hollow she vowed never to think about him again. 

And she almost made it.

Then the day of the wedding came.

When she saw him standing there, under that tree, something inside of her came alive and she rushed to his side.

She had never known that she could feel so alive.

Her hands screamed out to touch him but she was afraid of moving so she just stood there.

But when he said he was moving back she couldn't hold it back anymore.

And for a brief second she opened her heart to him and she kissed him.

It was a kiss that seemed to move both heaven and earth.

Afterwards, when she stood there with her lips bruised by his kiss, reality hit her and she fled.

She ran all the way to Washington.

For months she tried to forget about him and the kissed they shared.

She refused to see the truth of it all; that she was in love with him.

So instead she hid away in the big city of Washington, far away from his presence.

But the ghost of him kept haunting her all through summer.

She tried to put pen to paper and tell him what she couldn't do face-to-face.

But it ended in nothing.

So she remained quiet and prayed that the months that had passed would eventually erase him from her mind.

But how wrong she was.

When she finally came home he was the first one she looked for.

Not Dean.

Jess.

She wasn't prepared that he might actually have moved on. So when she saw him kissing another girl something inside of her broke. She had been foolish enough to believe that he might actually have missed her. She believed that he had felt something also.

A part of her felt ashamed for actually feeling anything.

So she raised her shields and went back to the life she clung to so desperately.

Days flew by and she tried to go back to what her world once was.

But he had altered it. 

When Dean kissed her she tried so much to feel the same kind of thunder she had once felt.

But something was missing and it kept haunting her.

When she finally came face to face with Jess that night in the store jealousy took the better part of her.

She was so afraid to show her heart so she hid behind anger.

Instead of maybe opening the door for him, she closed it. 

She had tasted something when she kissed him, something she now feared.

When she walked away from the store that night she told herself that she was rid of

his ghost. But how wrong she was.

His face kept haunting her in her dreams and his presence still lingered 

in every corner of the town. She wore her head held high as she passed him on the street and she said to herself that she wouldn't break down first. He was out her life forever this time, or at least that was what she thought.

But she was weak. 

There were moments, brief moments, when she found herself crumbling and she longed for him. She found herself wanting the life he had given her.

But she had chosen to let it go and that was something she had to live with.

As the days passed her choice eventually left her bitter and angry so when the day of the dance came her heart was filled with anger towards him, the boy she couldn't have.

But most of all she was angry with herself for wanting another life than the 

one she had chosen. When they finally came face-to-face on that dance floor she let all her anger out on him and she had no idea why. She told herself that she had a right to be angry with him. She told herself that her intention was pure.

She had never expected that her life, the life she had so carefully built and maintained, would come crashing down on her that night.

But it did.

She had been hurt before. Life had given her scares, many of them.

But never like that. Of all the people in the world she had never expected that Dean would hurt her like he did. She believed that he would stand by her side in

whatever battle she chose to enter. 

He had been her first love and to her he would be her last. She had thought it

might last forever. It didn't.

He saw something, something inside of her that he had ignored for so long and he brought it out and held it up towards the light. And he broke her heart.

But it was a pain that she deserved and she took the pain gladly.

Of all the things he said that night the truth hurt her the most.

His words echoed through that hall and found its way inside of the walls she had built high and strong around her heart.

They left her feeling ashamed and weak.

So she fled.

She fled out into the night and prayed that dark eventually would swallow the memories of that evening.

But he came after her.

Jess found her on the bridge, the place she ran to when the world got too much to bear.

And he told her a truth she had dreamed of but never dared to believe that actually might come through.

That night, on that bridge, her walls came undone and she opened her heart fully to a love she had tried so long to ignore.

As she stood by her window, months later, she tried to shut her heart once again to all the memories that threatened to break her into millions of tiny pieces.

But all the memories still lived inside of her and kept eating at her core, causing her to slowly but surely fall apart.

Sometimes, if she just closed her eyes, she could still taste him.

She had given herself totally that night.

She had wanted it as much he did.

When he touched her that night she knew that she couldn't hold back anymore.

So she had surrendered and given herself to him.

She had been foolish.

She saw that now and was ashamed. 

He was gone now and she had to live with the fact that she had given herself totally to someone that didn't really want her.

In her heart she had believed that this time it would last forever.

She had never dared to call it love. For her it was something else, something she feared of naming, afraid if she spoke out loud it would fade like everything else in her life.

So instead she clung to the precious moments she got with him and 

hoped that he felt the same.

When he had kissed her, that night after the dance, she had seen something in his eyes that she swore was love.

But as she stood there now she began to doubt all the things she had felt and all the things he had said to her. She was so determined to not break.

She told herself that it was over and she had to move on.

It was just a matter of time.

He wasn't coming back this time.

All she had to do now was to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and move on with her life.

She had to let go.

Maybe then she would be okay.

Feedback j_rothen@yahoo.se


	3. How can you live with yourself?

**How can you live with yourself?**

by: Jessica

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

**_"Here I am just half a man _**

**_standing alone,_**

**_feeling like I lost my only chance at_**

**_happiness when I let you go,_**

**_I don't want to be alone thinkin' 'bout you girl,_**

**_I got nothin' left to hold in this lonely world."_**

( "Breakin' me" by Jonny Lang)

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He had been broken before.

But somehow and in some way he always managed to pick up the pieces of

his broken self and put them back together.

This time was different.

As he stood there, looking out over the never-ending sea, he knew 

that he had no idea how to become whole again.

It felt like he was coming undone from the moment he walked away 

from her.

A part of him welcomed the feeling of pain that kept eating at his center 

core because that meant that he was still alive.

………………………………………………

He had always been a master of hurting himself and everyone around him.

It was a curse he carried with him through life.

He had known that it was just a matter of life before he broke her heart.

But this time was different.

He had let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, things would turn

out differently.

He had been in love.

It took months for him to admit that to himself.

But he had been scared.

He had let fear take the better part of him and he had done what

he had become a master of:

he ran.

He told himself that he had no other choice than leave.

But in his heart he knew that it was just lies he was telling himself.

The simple truth was that he didn't want to change.

It scared him.

Back in New York he had been Jess Mariano, the troublemaker. 

That was a label that had stuck with him all through his life.

It was a label he desperately clung to.

It gave him meaning and direction in his life, without it he was nothing.

But then he had met Rory Gilmore and his life had become something else.

All he had ever wanted was to belong somewhere and she opened herself

up to him and gave him everything.

And he had given her nothing.

All he ever gave her was a broken heart.

………………………..

He told himself, when he lay alone at night staring at up at the dark sky,

that she was better off without him.

As the days became weeks he started to believe that he was doing just fine

and that he had forgotten about her.

It was a lie he clung to, that made him stronger, that kept him alive.

……………………………

He had run to California and a man that claimed to be his father.

He told himself that he didn't need a father and that all he wanted was somewhere to sleep.

But a part of him, the part he kept hidden from the world, still craved a father. 

Someone that maybe could save him from the path he was going down. 

But Jimmy Mariano had nothing to give his own son.

Jess had stood there, like a fool, and he had pleaded for shelter.

He, that once had vowed to never beg anyone for anything, had almost gotten down on his knees and pleaded for a home.

But he had been turned away by a father that had walked away from him so many years before.

…………………………….

Afterwards, when he stood there on the beach, with his feet buried in the warm sand, he had felt ashamed for believing that he might actually find a home there.

But most of all, he was scared.

So he became just another face in the crowd.

He spent his time drifting in between alive and dead.

He became a ghost in a city filled with thousands of faces.

He liked it like that.

Being alone.

Just another face in the crowd.

He had burned all his bridges to the past.

And he was alone in every way possible.

The only thing he had left in his life was the things he carried on his back and an old, rusty car.

His home became a car.

He thought about returning a million times over.

But pride took the better off him.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

But then the day of her graduation came and he began to stumble.

It was never his intention to call her.

It never had.

When he left he had vowed to stay as far away as possible from her.

It was a matter of survival.

But he was a weak man and he needed her.

He stood there a long time, by the phone, just working up the courage to dial her number.

It took two tries before he got through.

As she spoke his name, he almost hung up.

It had become a ritual of his.

He would call to hear her voice.

He never spoke but she knew that it was him.

Sometimes he could almost feel her.

The conversations was never long, just enough for him to steady his heart.

She had pleaded with him at first and with the silence he gave her, to say something.

But he had been too afraid to speak.

So they had settled with his silence and it became the only thing that kept them together.

Then her graduation came.

And he knew as he stood there clutching the phone that they had come to the end of the road.

He had to say goodbye this time.

He had to let go.

He stood there and listened to her saying goodbye in her way and he wanted to speak.

All he had to do was open his mouth and speak.

But he couldn't.

He just stood there, like a fool, and listened as he she said:

_"....I think I may have loved you but I just need to let it go...."_

In that moment he could feel a tiny piece of his heart detach and fall inside his chest.

As she spoke that word goodbye he almost parted his lips and spoke.

But it was too late, anyways, because her voice faded to black as she hung up.

His hands trembled a little as he hung up.

He stood there; imaging her in all her glory.

He imagined the warmth she radiated as she graced the world with her smile.

And the sheer strength of his memories almost made him stumble.

………………………..

He walked back to his car determined to leave.

He needed to run now.

He needed to put as much distance between him and his memories as possible.

Maybe it was foolish to try to run.

But if he stayed, if he stopped running, even for a second, he would lose his mind.

So he ran once again.

This time without direction.

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Feedback j_rothen@yahoo.se


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